Page 76 of Chaos has a Name (An FBI Romance/Thriller #66)

Ethan was looking a little thin, and Wyler knew it was likely from what had happened in Philadelphia. When Callen was stressed, he ate. When Ethan was stressed, he didn’t. If he thought making the man some cookies would work, he’d be baking damn cookies at this time of the night.

Seeing that he had bags under his eyes, Wyler knew that he’d picked the absolute worst time to bail on his kids again.

His eldest was barely holding it together as he kept taking hit after hit.

Oh, he might pretend that he had it under control, but he knew when the man was faltering.

Yes, Wyler knew the truth. Ethan carried his pain deep in his chest—so deep, it festered.

Being a father had to come first, even if his son was angry with him.

“How did Caryn do?” he asked, handing him some homemade bread to go with the second bowl of stew.

Ethan continued to eat, only because he wasn’t sure if he wanted to know what his father was thinking, or planning to discuss with him.

As his son, Ethan had said all that he cared to on the situation with TJ, and Wyler’s stunt.

“It tastes like granddad made it,” Ethan admitted. “It’s almost exact, so you can tell her she did good. It’s delicious,” he added.

That was diplomatic Ethan showing up to the party.

Wyler kept talking.

“Caryn found a bunch of cards that Timothy had scribbled recipes on. I think he was going to do them for Elizabeth, but he ran out of time.”

Ethan watched him.

“What do you want to say to me, Wyler? Because you don’t have to pussyfoot around it. I’m a grown-ass man, and I’m not going to break. I’m pretty strong.”

Wyler wasn’t sure if he was trying to convince him, or himself. Either way, he knew that they needed to have a conversation about a lot of things.

“I heard about Philadelphia,” he admitted, going right to that issue first.

Ethan closed his eyes, and when he opened them again, the ice and chill were there.

“Don’t worry about it,” he stated. “It was a long time ago.”

Wyler sat beside him.

“As I’ve gotten older, Ethan, I’ve learned that time does matter.

If you don’t want to talk about it, okay.

Just know that I’m sorry that you were hurt, EJ.

I’m sorry that I wasn’t around to protect you or save you.

Just like I wasn’t here for Callen. I’ve done a lot of terrible things in my life.

And I keep perpetuating them. No matter how much I try to make amends, before it’s my time, I’m failing miserably. ”

Ethan kept eating, and didn’t look at him. When the silence was uncomfortable, finally, he spoke.

“It’s fine, Wyler. I learned a long time ago to take care of myself. I’ll get through it. I always do.”

Wyler touched his wrist, and Ethan’s body tensed at the unwanted contact. Well, that was Wyler’s burden because he did this with his selfishness over decades.

“Say what you need to say to me. You may not get another time to do it. This is part of me making amends. I can’t make restitution for my actions without knowing how deep the wound is.”

Ethan slowly turned his head and stared into his father’s eyes.

“I hated you for a very long time, Wyler. I hated Timothy too.”

That actually surprised Wyler.

He hadn’t expected that.

“Really?”

Ethan put his spoon down. He’d lost his appetite, and wasn’t in the mood to eat now. It was rolling in his belly, making him nauseous.

“Yes. He didn’t love me enough to save me. He saved Callen, and he kept saving you, but when it came time for him to save me, he let them take me.”

Wyler heard the anger and saw the tears in his eyes. Ethan rarely talked about the time he spent in foster care. It was a whole year until he aged out.

All they knew was it made him cold, hard, and not the boy he was when he was taken.

And for that, Wyler was sorry.

“So, don’t worry about not being around to save me.

The people who should have didn’t, and I still survived.

I made a life for myself, and I have people who love me.

That’s all that matters now. My children will never know what that feeling of absolute emptiness feels like.

I broke the cycle, and I’m a better man for it.

I just don’t understand why I was the ONLY one not worth saving.

It’s a question I’ve asked myself for a very long time. ”

Wyler wanted to hug his son.

But he also didn’t want to get punched in the face. He could see Ethan was fighting tooth-and-nail to keep that rage in check.

Being back here likely didn’t help it. There was no doubt Wyler could have done this differently.

He should have.

“It’s not that he didn’t want you, Ethan.

He didn’t save you because he wanted me to get you.

He came to me and had a very long, angry discussion on how I needed to grow the fuck up, and get you.

My father has only hit me twice in my life, and that was one of the times. Timothy could knock a man on his ass.”

Ethan didn’t say anything.

“The bottom line, son, is that I couldn’t do it. I went to the bar and got drunk because I was inches from taking my life to escape.”

Ethan glanced over.

He didn’t want the excuses.

Ethan knew that if it meant saving his oldest son, or ending his miserable existence that he’d made for himself, he’d ALWAYS save CJ.

In.

A.

Heartbeat.

“Did I mean that little to you as a seventeen-year-old that you’d choose booze over me?” he asked. “Because I have children, and I’d let a mob of angry people rip me to pieces while alive to save them. I’d die to save them. I just can’t figure out why you didn’t want to save me. Ever.”

It was time to be honest.

For the longest time, Wyler tried to decide when would be the right time to give what he knew to his son. He’d carried that deep in his soul.

Protecting it.

Now, it was best he shared everything so that Ethan could start to heal. Wyler knew that if he died, Ethan would carry this anger with him.

And that was the last thing he wanted.

It was time for both of them to start to heal before it was too late. Wyler was going to do chemo, but he knew that he had like a ten percent chance of surviving.

The odds…

They weren’t in his favor.

Now, he was fighting for them, just so they could have a little more time left with each other. His goal was to make it one more Christmas.

That’s all he wanted.

“You need to know something, Ethan.”

He shrugged.

“I need to know a lot of things yet, Wyler. Most of them why I’m so fucked up in the head and heart. Just when I start putting me back together, I get my feet kicked out from under me. I just want peace.”

Wyler figured it was the time.

“When your mother was dying, I stopped by the cabin while you were at school one day. She’d asked Timothy to get me there, and he did. He dragged me there by my ear.”

Ethan listened.

Because if he spoke, he was going over the edge. If his wife was dying, Ethan wouldn’t leave her side. He’d hold her hand until her last breath. It was confusing to Ethan why someone would have to force a person to do that.

“When I got there, she asked me to do her one favor when she passed. She asked that I take care of you, and I not let anything happen to you.”

He wasn’t shocked.

Not by Timothy having to drag him there, and not that his mother loved him. There wasn’t a day that went by that she didn’t show him.

Even sick, she gave him everything she had.

They’d play board games in her bed as she was so sick she couldn’t walk.

She’d make him dinner, even if it was simple because that was all she could muster.

Catherine had been the ONLY one who never let him down as a child. So, of course, she’d be the one that the universe took from him.

Instead, leaving him with a meddling old man who let CPS take him, and a drunken father who didn’t care for ANY of his children.

Minus the few years he’d raised TJ.

“Even on her deathbed, I couldn’t deal with it,” Wyler admitted. “I told her what she wanted to hear, and then, I escaped. I had to stare into her face, and know that death was taking the wrong parent.”

Ethan was well aware.

His life would have been incredibly different had Catherine lived. He wouldn’t be the cold, cruel bastard he’d learned to be in order to survive.

All he knew was that he was lucky.

He found his tribe, and they loved him for him.

Wyler kept going.

“Then, there was the day I got the call. Your mother was gone for quite a few years at that point. Timothy called me, he told me that CPS came for you, and that I needed to go get you. They needed the birth certificate, and proof that I was able to care for you.”

He said nothing.

Even as a fifty-year-old man, this broke something in him. How could it not?

“When I pulled out the box of things I’d gotten from your mother’s home after her death, I began digging through it frantically to find your birth certificate. That’s when I found a letter she’d written to me.”

Ethan didn’t know where this was going.

Wyler got up, and he went to one of the cabinets in the pantry. Out of it, he pulled a shoebox that had been tucked up on the highest shelf behind some crackers.

When he brought it back, he sat down and took the lid off of it.

“Here is the letter your mother left me,” he said. “My beloved Catherine, the only woman who was my other half in all of my years of life, left me this last piece of her. Here is what she said to me.”

Ethan took it, and he opened it up. The letter was clearly read many, many times. It was worn, and some of the ink was smeared by water.

Like someone had cried over it.

When he saw the handwriting, it was a punch to his chest.

He’d know it anywhere.

Why?

His very unique penmanship was incredibly similar. He’d not only gotten his mother’s eye color, but he’d also gotten her handwriting.

As he began reading, he felt like he could feel her there with him. Like she was in the kitchen, watching. Only, Ethan wasn’t sure if that was a good or bad thing.

He was ready to break.

‘My one true love,